China last year became the world's largest user of power, surpassing the U.S. The title came largely thanks to gains in U.S. energy efficiency. (Source: Science Blogs)

China is expected to pass Japan this year to become the world's top coal importer. Only three years ago it was a net exporter. (Source: CleanTechnica)

Aside from GHG emissions, China's high emissions of Nox and sulfuric compounds has given rise to noxious smog clouds, which now frequently blanket China, depending on weather conditions. (Source: Telegraph UK)

Nation of over 1.3 billion people thirsts for power as it grows larger and more industrialized

Back
in June 2007 China earned the dubious distinction of surpassing the
U.S. to become the world's
top emitter of greenhouse gases. Now approximately three
years later, the highly populated country has become the world's
largest consumer of energy.

The news that China may now be the
world biggest energy customer comes based on analysis by
the International Energy
Agency (IEA). According
to the IEA, China overtook the U.S. in energy consumption
sometime last year.

Despite having over 1.3 billion people,
versus about 307 million in the U.S., China's new title may be
primarily driven by the inefficient way it uses energy. While
the U.S. has improved its energy efficiency by 2.5 percent per year
from 2000 to 2010, China only improved 1.7 percent.

While the
U.S. still trails Europe in energy efficiency, it is consuming much
less power as time goes on. States Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief
economist, "In the 2000, the US consumed twice as much energy as
China, now China consumes more than the U.S. On the one hand, the
U.S. has come to a certain saturation of energy use, but there have
also been lots of efforts, especially since 2005, to use energy more
efficiently."

As Birol indicates, the Chinese victory
came as somewhat of a surprise, as it was widely expected to take a
couple more years for the Chinese to surpass the U.S. in energy
consumption. But the the numbers conclusively show that last
year China used 4 percent more power than the U.S. -- 2,252 million
tons of oil equivalent of energy from sources including coal, oil,
nuclear power, natural gas and hydropower.

The IEA states that
China, as the world's top dog in energy consumption, will be able to
dictate international energy policy to an extent. States Birol,
"There will be a big multiplier effect."

The U.S. in
recent years has been concerned with China's energy hunger.
Disdainful of China's proposed "voluntary"
emissions targets, the U.S. has also shown concern about China's
aggressive pursuit of Kazakhstan oil.

Three years ago China
was a net exporter of coal. This year it is expected to import
105-115 million tonnes of coal, to surpass Japan as the world's
largest coal importer. China is also now Saudi Arabia's largest
oil customer -- a position held for decades by the U.S. Money
speaks and that position will likely have a profound effect on
international business and relations in the Middle East.

It is interesting that global energy use is tied to global population when most energy use globally goes into production, and not individual discreationary consumption.

So while it is therefore true that the US consumes more like 25% of global energy, we also produce about 25% of global domestic product. That seems to me to be an efficient use of energy. Now if we used 25% of energy and produced 5% of global GDP, we would have a problem.

LOL - you logic is just silly. It's like saying driving a Hummer with it's abysmal fuel economy is fine because that fuel is driving the car. DOOOHH!

China now using more energy than the US is no excuse for the US using crazy amount of resources per person. Especially when reducing that use of resources would be pretty easy as merely going for cars with reasonable mileage and housing that a energy friendly will make a huge difference.

Oh, and if we do accept your logic should the stuff coming in from China not be counted in both the US and China numbers!

Listed by energy intensity (amount of energy consumed per unit of productivity), the U.S. is in the middle of the pack. Certainly the U.S. has room for improvement. But if you want to criticize countries for "wasteful" energy use like a Hummer, you should be starting with the countries which top this following list, not the U.S.:

Well since the subject of the news post is China and the US then exactly why should I comment on other countries than those two.

However since you're making an issue out of the whole energy intensity thing then maybe we need to consider what lies behind those figures. The thing is GDP is a financial measurement and it tells nothing on what is produced only the value of what is produced. So we are back to consumption vs. money which isn't really a fair yard stick unless you're gonna claim the life of a wealthy person is worth more than a poor person?

Unfortunately, because of the paradox, decreasing consumption simply for the sake of decreasing consumption is synonymous with reverting society to a pre-industrial pre-technological state. Given a choice between that and increased efficiency leading to increased consumption, I choose the latter. We should be encouraging increased energy efficiency, not encouraging decreased energy consumption.

I found this blog post looking for a more detailed explanation, while i was looking for more info on manipulation of the CPI (which i hear GDP is related to in some way), but i must go take a bath so i'll leave with this link for now ^^. I doubt many here will belive it credible, but it's a start.